One of the best way to meet others in our community and stay current is to attend several conventions and events hosted by institutions focused on Longevity. The following is a list of events in chronological order that will add to your knowledge base. Special thanks to John D. Furber for compiling this comprehensive list!

Last June, the Methuselah Foundation and NASA officially launched the Vascular Tissue Challenge (VTC) at the White House Organ Summit, hosted by the Office of Science and Technology Policy. The VTC includes a $500,000 prize purse from NASA for the first teams that can successfully create thick (>1cm), vascularized tissues that remain functional and alive for more than 30 days. Along with this is the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space’s (CASIS) “Innovations in Space Award,” providing an additional $200,000 to support a research opportunity onboard the International Space Station’s National Laboratory!

SAN DIEGO and MELBOURNE, Australia and SPRINGFIELD, Va., Jan. 24, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Organovo Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:ONVO) (“Organovo”), a three-dimensional biology company focused on delivering scientific and medical breakthroughs using its 3D bioprinting technology, today announced a collaboration with Professor Melissa Little and the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, The Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, Australia to develop an architecturally correct kidney for potential therapeutic applications. The collaboration has been made possible by a generous gift from the Methuselah Foundation (“Methuselah”) as part of its ongoing University 3D Bioprinter Program.

For the first time, scientists were able to correct the genetic mutation that causes sickle cell disease in stem cells.

In a collaborative effort, researchers at UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI), and the University of Utah School of Medicine fixed the mutation in modified stem cells from patients with the condition using a CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing approach.

NASA is challenging teams to create thick, metabolically-functional human vascularized organ tissue in a controlled lab setting. It's called the Vascular Tissue Challenge, and the first three teams to succeed will split a total prize of $500,000. It's a challenge, but a necessary one for getting NASA one step closer to sending humans to Mars.

The ideas surrounding life enhancement are not new—in fact, records show an interest in the mysteries surrounding human life for centuries.

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein explores the idea of creating a life, while Doctor Who achieves life extension through regeneration. Wolverine's mutations let him heal away his problems, and Captain America froze himself into the 21st century. Just look at almost any Star Trek episode and you’ll see how fascinated people are with the idea of extending life.

Irish scientists have developed a revolutionary new process which allows them to make human bones using 3D printing.

The new process could eliminate the need for bone grafts and could even make new joints to replace hips and knees and offers hope to those with large and complex bone defects or who have suffered catastrophic injuries.

When it comes to the billions of neurons in your brain, what you see at birth is what get — except in the hippocampus. Buried deep underneath the folds of the cerebral cortex, neural stem cells in thehippocampus continue to generate new neurons, inciting a struggle between new and old as the new attempts to gain a foothold in the memory-forming center of the brain.

University of Toronto biomedical engineering University Professor Michael Sefton (IBBME, ChemE) has been named this year’s recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Tissue Engineering & Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS). The award, issued by the organization’s Americas chapter, recognizes his immense contributions to the fields of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

A research team led by investigators at The Saban Research Institute of Children's Hospital Los Angeles has generated functional human and mouse tissue-engineered liver from adult stem and progenitor cells. Tissue-engineered Liver (TELi) was found to contain normal structural components such as hepatocytes, bile ducts and blood vessels. The study has been published online in the journal Stem Cells Translational Medicine.

Typically, a fellowship and participation in a research study to cure a major disease would occur years after completing undergrad, possibly even after earning a PhD. But Jennifer DeRosa is not a typical student.

The Vascular Tissue Challenge is a $500,000 prize purse for the creation ofthick, human vascularized organ tissue in an in-vitro environment that maintains metabolic functionality similar to in vivo native cells throughout a 30-day trial period. The Methuselah Foundation's New Organ Alliance and NASA's Centennial Challenges Program have partnered to create this challenge with the goal of advancing research on human physiology, fundamental space biology, and medicine taking place both on the Earth and the ISS National Laboratory.

Those working in the field of bioengineering should be ready for a challenge worth $500,000. NASA, along with the nonprofit Methuselah Foundation's New Organ Alliance, has introduced the new prize competition, named as the Vascular Tissue Challenge. The first three teams that will succeed in creating thick, metabolically-functional human vascularized organ tissue in a controlled laboratory environment will be offered the prize money.

NASA, in partnership with the nonprofit Methuselah Foundation’s New Organ Alliance, is seeking ways to advance the field of bioengineering through a new prize competition.

The Vascular Tissue Challenge offers a $500,000 prize to be divided among the first three teams that successfully create thick, metabolically-functional human vascularized organ tissue in a controlled laboratory environment.

Researchers have discovered that an injection of a protein called IL-33 can reverse Alzheimer's-like symptoms and cognitive decline in mice, restoring their memory and cognitive function to the same levels as healthy mice in the space of one week.

Mice bred to develop a progressive Alzheimer's-like disease as they aged (called APP/PS1 mice) were given daily injections of the protein, and it appeared to not only clear out the toxic amyloid plaques that are thought to trigger Alzheimer’s in humans, it also prevented more from forming.‌‌

In the pages of comic books and on the silver screen, superheroes like Wolverine and Deadpool have a “healing factor” that allows their bodies to regenerate and recover from injuries or illness at an amazing rate – but certainly nothing like that is possible in real life, right?

Amazingly, a team of scientists led by John Pimanda, a hematologist and associate professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia, published a study in Monday’s edition of the journal PNASreporting that they had successfully reprogrammed bone and fat cells into induced multipotent stem cells (iMS) – the first step to making such a repair system a reality.

NASA is carrying forward its mission to reach out to new frontiers with the announcement today of plans for a "Vascular Tissue Challenge", a $500,000 prize to be given to the team who can first develop vascular thick tissue that will lay the basis for treatments ranging everywhere from new tissue for burn victims to 3-D organ printing, and providing new organs for all who might need them, when they need them.